David Swinford can’t buy a break.

For the Republicans who think President Obama, who’s been in office for not quite a year, is toast if he runs for re-election in 2012, I have a two-word response: Ronald Reagan.

In 1981, Reagan took office with the economy in serious decline. In 1982, the president’s party suffered significant losses in the off-year congressional elections, losing 27 House seats to the Democrats. President Reagan’s approval ratings fell dramatically. The GOP was in a state of woeful disrepair.

Then, just like that, it was “morning in America.” The Democrats nominated a candidate, Walter Mondale, who vowed to raise taxes. President Reagan seized on an economic reversal.

How did the 1984 election turn out? Well, the president came within 3,000 votes in Minnesota — Mondale’s home state — of scoring a 50-state sweep on his way to a rousing re-election victory.

It’s also helpful to remember that Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party suffered big losses in 1994. President Clinton, though, won re-election handily two years later.

Will a similar outcome occur in 2012? I have no way of knowing that. I do know this, however: It is far too early in the current president’s first term to be writing his political obituary.

Today’s weather reminds me of a story I’ve been telling for years. It involves the legendary football coach O.A. “Bum” Phillips and it’s gotten great laughs from those who have heard it.

Some things are just plain funny even when they aren’t intended to be.

This caption appeared under a photograph of Gov. Rick Perry in the Dec. 2 edition of the New York Times: “Rick Perry is painting himself as the authentic, don’t-mess-with-Texas conservative.”

Why is that funny? “Don’t Mess With Texas” was born many years ago as an anti-littering slogan. I think it was during the time that Garry Mauro was Texas land commissioner — which seems like an eternity by now.

But over the years, the phrase has morphed into some kind of super-macho state slogan. I don’t know if it’s because others outside of Texas have misinterpreted its meaning, or whether political opportunists within our state borders have seen it as a kind of “branding” device for the Lone Star State.

Maybe we ought to retire the old anti-litter slogan and trot out a new one that is less prone to being corrupted.

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.

Former Alaska Gov.-turned-best-selling author Sarah Palin has jumped into the birther cesspool. She was asked today by a talk-radio jock whether the issue of President Obama’s citizenship is a legitimate issue.

Her answer was evasive and clumsy at the same time. The voters, she said, have made it an issue, so therefore it is “fair game.” She didn’t say precisely that she believes the nut cases who keep fanning the flames that question President Obama’s citizenship. She has hitched herself to the others’ bandwagon. In other words, if they believe that nonsense, then it’s OK with her.

It doesn’t matter to these goofballs that the state of Hawaii, where the president was born, has produced a birth certificate. Nor does it matter that two Honolulu newspapers published announcements of his birth — in Hawaii — back in 1961; the doubters thus have implied that the newspapers’ editors concocted a plot that makes the JFK conspiracy cultists look like rank amateurs.

These nut jobs have glommed onto the lies promoted by Obama-haters who just cannot stand the thought of this guy being elected president.

Now they can count a former governor — and current political superstar — as one of their own.

Mac Thornberry is going to run for re-election to a ninth term in Congress. He announced his intention to seek re-election today, saying that “this is a critical time for our nation.”

It’s a little after 1 p.m. I have returned from lunch with my wife — and I have just enjoyed a remarkable driving experience.

I traveled north from Affiliated Foods, where my wife works, all the way into downtown and didn’t hit a single red light on the way. That’s what, about six miles?

Some months ago, I put a post on this blog about having to wait for red lights.

http://johnkanelis.blogspot.com/2009/02/waiting-for-no-one.html

Today, I must proclaim this minor motor vehicle victory.

I dropped my wife off at her office and turned left from Farmers Road onto Washington Street. Past 58th Avenue I went; then I zipped through 46th; then came the light at the Canyon E-Way, which was green; on to 34th, where I found green again; 24th and 22nd in front of Amarillo College were green; same for Wolfin Avenue; I arrived at I-40 and sailed through the green light; the intersections at 16th and 15th were as green as green gets; I made the small curve in front of Ellwood Park and breezed through the lights at 11th and 10th and Adams; I made the turn onto Ninth and wheeled into the parking lot at the Globe-News. I’ll admit that I was sweating it.

About two-thirds of the way back to work, I began to feel like a pitcher who realizes in the sixth inning he’s throwing a no-hitter. I didn’t dare say anything out loud, even to myself, about what I was about to experience. I didn’t want to jinx it.

This is a red-letter day, given the interminable delays at intersections all over the city.

Now, if I can find a way to navigate my way east along Ninth without hitting every single one of those red lights …

A sheriff in Oregon once disabused me of the notion that police traffic stops were “routine.”

There’s no such thing as a “routine traffic stop,” the sheriff told me. I wrote the phrase in a police-related story I wrote for the paper I worked for back then. I was new to daily journalism. I have stayed away from the phrase ever since when writing about the work that police officers do every day. In the three decades since then, I’ve heard that refrain from other officers throughout Texas, in Beaumont (where I once lived and worked) and here in Amarillo.

The admonition came to mind this week as news came out about the ambush in Lakewood, Wash., in which four police officers were slain by a gunman who shot them dead in a coffee shop. The officers were typing reports on their laptops, getting ready for their shifts to begin.

Then tragedy struck without warning.

The officers were doing duties that should have been “routine,” but weren’t.

I’ll have more to say on this issue in the days ahead. The tragedy in Lakewood needs to be revisited as a reminder of the potential sacrifice that police officers face every single time they report to work.

I cannot imagine the dread their loved ones must endure.